I decided to ride to Batopilas, which is another canyon-bottom town like Urique, but a little larger and with a longer history (clear back to Spanish times). I set out on Sunday morning after buying groceries and making calls and such, and rode to the Cusarare waterfall a few miles out of town, then continued on.

The first 45 miles or so of the road are paved with nice, new pavement. And there was hardly any traffic. And it was incredibly beautiful. Unlike our first several miles riding toward Urique, where we couldn't see into the canyons until the end, I could see huge expanses of canyon at every crest. But WOW, was it hard riding. I was ready for the up-and-down, but this was almost disspiriting. You'd ride up a steep incline for 20 minutes, then ride down 5, then up 30, then down 5. I was foolish getting lulled into thinking I knew about the up-and-down, because the last canyon must have taken 2 hours to climb out.

I got to the top just a dusk, nearly out of water, and stopped at the little store there (which was my goal for the day - it's the intersection with the Batopilas dirt road that goes down into the canyon). Rather than have me camp on a flat section of gravel next to their family dump, they put me in an upstairs room, which was very kind, especially since it rained a lot in the night.

It's amazing. In Copper Canyon there seem to be no valleys, only canyons. Or is it only mountains, with no valleys. At home we're used to climbing over a mountain pass (big event) and then descending a few minutes into a valley, riding there an hour or two, then climbing up another pass. But here, you just go down and then start right up as soon as you cross the river. A whole different kind of riding!